The Power of We: A Learning Collaborative Approach to Quality Improvement

Community health care providers face persistent challenges in delivering effective, coordinated care for patients with overweight and obesity. These challenges are compounded by complex systemic barriers, resource limitations, and the need for up-to-date clinical and quality improvement (QI) skills.

To address these challenges, QI coaching programs are widely implemented in community health care settings. Participants often highlight the value of topics such as patient recruitment and retention strategies, QI methodologies, evidence-based weight management, and motivational interviewing. Additionally, as a core component of these initiatives, concurrent continuing education can equip participating clinicians with the knowledge to assess current processes, identify workflow barriers, and implement meaningful changes in practice. In fact, continuing education has been linked to measurable improvements in HRSA measures of clinical documentation and care—particularly in recording BMI and height, diagnosing overweight and obesity, and providing counseling on diet and physical activity in primary care (Farran, 2013; HRSA, 2022)

In this session, learners will explore a proven, dual-component QI and continuing education initiative, for the Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) that we worked with, that intentionally combines systems-level change with provider-level education. The initiative coupled a Learning Collaborative (system-based QI support, change management, and coaching) with a Project ECHO (longitudinal clinical education). The 18-month initiative educated clinicians regarding the diagnosis and care for patients with overweight and obesity and concurrently helped FQHC teams identify improvements to the systems in which care is provided.

Participants will be provided with an overview of the QI educational initiative, QI methodologies used, and presenting findings from the iterative outcomes analysis throughout the project to demonstrate the educational impact of the initiative on learner knowledge/competence gains and process changes to practice. Participants will be able to take home QI resources, as well as lessons learned and recommendations for implementing QI continuing education initiatives in collaboration with clinical teams for their staff. Additionally, participants will gain a deeper knowledge of QI methodology, tools, and resources to expand their knowledge and perspectives on using QI in conjunction with continuing education to positively impact clinical process and practice improvements.